Much of the dialogue in Crash is like a slap in the
face. It is intended to provoke. You get that in the first few
minutes of writer/director Paul Haggis' remarkable adult drama, a
searing, finely tuned portrait of prejudice in a post-9/11 world in
which the common currency of life is suspicion based on race.

The many fiery exchanges push characters further into their
corners, making them ever angrier and more convinced of their
righteousness, but they are also designed to unsettle you by
denying the audience the refuge of stereotype.

As a gun-shop owner refuses to sell a pistol and ammunition to a
Persian man, he screams about the atrocities of 9/11 as if holding
the man personally responsible. He's a raging bigot in full flight,
yet you instantly understand the fount of his anger.

A similar thing occurs at the higher end of the social spectrum
as an upper-class woman (Sandra Bullock) automatically shirks at
the sight of two black men on the street. She takes the arm of her
district attorney husband (Brendan Fraser) and crosses the road to
their car. Though she seems like a cliched white woman, we soon
learn how her anxiety is not the act of a low-level racist, but of
a woman living in fears that are well-grounded.

Words flow like an electric current through the film. Much of
the verbal crossfire takes place at the flashpoint where suspicion,
misunderstanding and outright resentment lead to confrontations
about the meaning of race in modern urban life, and how the concept
of a "colour blind" world is about as far removed from reality as a
day at Disneyworld.

The brief that Haggis, who wrote Clint Eastwood's Million
Dollar Baby, gave himself was to say things you're not
supposed to say, especially on film. Unrestrained by notions of
political correctness, yet wily enough to keep his dramatic focus
three-dimensional, Haggis gives voice through a diverse cast of
characters to the ambiguities, contradictions and reasons behind
the racial tension he sees coursing like a torrent of lava under
the wafer-thin civility of everyday life.

The lives of cops, car-jackers, shop owners and ex-gang members
intersect at various points to illustrate the bio-feedback loop of
mistrust, fear, prejudice and anger that continually fertilises the
problem. And while Haggis' use of coincidence occasionally pushes
plausibility, there is no sense of dramatic exaggeration in his
mosaic.

This is a film with no comfort zones, no easy answers and no
argument that it is one of the best, most intelligent and
thought-provoking dramas you will see this year.